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Jury wanted

4 June 1994

Do you have an open mind about the pros and cons of plant biotechnology?
If so, you could qualify to be 1 of 15 lay members of a ‘jury’ that will
pronounce judgment on whether society needs this technology.

The jury is to be picked by John Durant and colleagues at the Science
Museum and will form the foundation for Britain’s first ever ‘consensus
conference’. Pioneered in Denmark, consensus conferences allow a cross section
of members of the public to pass judgment on controversial scientific topics.

The idea is that the jury can call ‘witnesses’, then give an objective,
unbiased verdict on the topic. Durant says that advertisements for jurors
will appear this month in regional newspapers.